Fan video gives new angle on Raikkonen-Alonso crash

2015 Austrian Grand Prix

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpjoNvkUDuQ

This footage shot by a fan at the Austrian Grand Prix and posted on YouTube gives a new perspective on the lap one collision between Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso.

The unusual crash occurred as they were accelerating away from turn two and Raikkonen’s car swerved sharply left into Alonso’s path. The pair hit an unprotected barrier which can be seen deflecting on impact in the video above.

The stewards cleared both drivers of responsibility for the crash.

2015 Austrian Grand Prix

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    Keith Collantine
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    69 comments on “Fan video gives new angle on Raikkonen-Alonso crash”

    1. Well, I don’t know why but Raikkonen seems to be making quite a few rookie mistakes this year. That was clearly 100% his fault, and just a poor season overall for the iceman as he has about 40% of the points tally he should have relative to pace

      1. @mashiat … I saw that Raikkonen collected Alonso but I also saw that Kvyat was alongside Raikkonen. I suspect Kvyat front wing struck Raikkonen rear tyre causing a rapid deflation and loss of control in the acceleration area.

        1. maarten.f1 (@)
          22nd June 2015, 5:41

          @peartree Kvyat damaged his front wing during a tangle with Perez. If Kvyat had caused a rapid deflation on Raikkonen’s tyre, it would’ve shown up at the telemetry and the stewards would know. And I’m sure Raikkonen would’ve felt it too.

          1. @maarten-f1 I heard Kvyat saying he thought he had lost his wing on Perez. I haven’t seen the data, surely a rapid deflation would show up. The stewards didn’t penalize Kimi for one reason or the other.
            Mashiat, that doesn’t mean there wasn’t anything else to cause the crash. Kimi has had 2 silly low speed spins, in this case however, the car was already well on it’s way.
            @weeniebeenie I’m not trying anything, I would need to backtrack someone’s comments to be able to qualify for that. Sunday I suggested that might’ve been a touch, me and Martin Brundle. It is strange to have a tank slapper at that speed. I haven’t seen the FOM video, which apparently proves Kvyat isn’t to blame. I didn’t blame anyone, I merely thought that debris could’ve caused a tyre issue, either rapid deflation or a slow puncture. Anyway it’s simple logic, that made me wonder what could’ve caused such a strange crash. in spite of 2015 being the 2nd year of the new PU’s, I’ve never seen a tank slapper like the one Kimi had in Austria, any other explanation than solely a driver error, seems more reasonable.

        2. @peartree No, Raikkonen admitted himself that he just lost control of the rear end of his car.

        3. Simon (@weeniebeenie)
          22nd June 2015, 11:56

          @peartree why are you trying so hard to shift blame from Kimi? Yesterday you were sure Alonso must’ve hit him, now you see that isn’t the case you suspect Kvyat did? Clutching at straws much? On the FOM video you can see Kvyat is nowhere near him and plus on the aftermath pictures that right rear tyre still looks perfectly inflated to me.

          Kimi made a boo boo. End of story.

          1. As you can see, Alonso actually has a contact with Raikkonen just before Kimi lost control. Look , it happens about 6-7 sec: https://youtu.be/mV4LYuGbl6I

            Propably this video will be removed soon, since it shows what actualloy happened.

    2. Thank you Kimi for ruining Alonso’s race and almost taking your own life.

      1. @spoutnik I think McLaren and Honda spoiled Alonso’s race well before the start of the Austrian GP.

        1. Well said. Perhaps not the race, but Kimi did ruin the “testing,” and took away a chance to learn from the new upgrades, though not sure if it would have helped McHonda to improve at all.

    3. Sean (@spaceman1861)
      22nd June 2015, 1:15

      Could this be related to the 100% random throttle issue he was having. Or is it more likely he just spun up.

      1. Could be, as apparently (according to an interview) they use the same engine map for starts and pitstops.

      2. They aren’t random issues with the throttle, that’s the behavior of the throttle after the start and pit stops, he knows the throttle will behave different, he has failed to adapt.

    4. Worth watching just to hear, at the beginning before it is slowed down, the great sound of F1, which is always better for some reason on amateur video than on official TV broadcast.

      1. Michael Brown
        22nd June 2015, 2:09

        I hear it’s some kind of mixing that goes on when the broadcasters add their own commentary. You can barely hear the cars, and that really reduces the spectacle when watching on TV.

        1. What I do is put my TV in Cinema sound mode. Then you hear more of the engines and few of the commentaries; you even hear the speaker of the race sometimes which is good atmosphere!

      2. Yes my thoughts exactly. It sounds significantly better than I thought it would. They’re talking about improvements in that department in the coming years so here’s hoping.

      3. Funny that, isn’t it @hohum.

      4. ColdFly F1 (@)
        22nd June 2015, 7:51

        @hohum, agree. Also live it is much better than on TV.

        It must be Bernie’s desperate efforts to slash the V6 turbo’s.

      5. Yes, the sound isn’t bad, and much better than from my several cellphone videos of last year, standing 20-30 feet from the track at the ends of straights and at corner exits. People nearby were conducting conversations easily (and captured on my videos) as the cars went by at 150 to 250kph, which would not have been possible even 5 years ago.

        Setting aside this single video, the live on-track sonics are actually quite poor. After last year’s disappointment, I prefer to watch on television so that the underwhelming sound of the Formula H(ybrid) “power unit” doesn’t thoroughly ruin the race experience. And it will get worse, not better:

        http://www.formula1blog.com/top-story/f1-goes-green-mosleys-final-act/

        http://www.fiainstitute.com/about/Pages/EnvironmentalPolicy.aspx.htm

    5. In Monaco, Alonso barely tapped Hulkenberg, and they both continued – Alonso gets a penalty.
      In Austria, Kimi completely loses control and makes a serious incident, taking both him and Alonso out of the race completely – no penalty.

      I understand that his race was over anyway, but he needs to be made accountable for what he does, because he is becoming a liability lately.

      1. This was a pure racing incident. Too many penalties are being handed out as it is.

        With all the sensors etc on the cars and the fact that the team can’t explain it, how can you put the accident (that’s what it was) on Kimi’s shoulders??

        1. That Alonso – Hulkenberg Monaco clash was also a racing incident, wasn’t it?

          1. Believe Hulkenberg said so himself.

          2. Officially, no. I think you could make a very good point that it should have been.

        2. Just out of curiosity, what is a racing incident.

          Often we hear this term thrown around this site. Is there an official description as to what constitutes a racing incident. Maybe @keithcollantine can shed some light.

          1. Bear in mind that most great overtaking moves are one small lockup away from a clumsy and unceremonious shunt. It doesn’t always do good or make sense to blame a driver for accidents not clearly caused by recklessness

          2. Common sense. When racing at high speeds, such as in F1, cm away from each other, with a lot of variables in play as dirt, debris, reflections, sneeze, almost always on the edge, it is obvious incidents are going to happen for one reason or another. It is part of the sport, as in football or basketball, you can’t avoid body contacts, can you?

        3. Please see the videos of the accident. You will clearly see Kimi losing control and veer left sharply onto Fernando, who, as he said, was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s very fortunate that they are both safe. Anyway, FA isn’t fighting for the championship like he was at Spa 2012, so no harm done. Actually the incident saved him from serving the ridiculous penalties, so perhaps some good came from it.

          1. If you watch all the available videos, it becomes quite clear that Alonso taps Kimis left rear tyre, which causes Kimi to lose control.

    6. there was a lot of touching before this corner and i just thought maybe Kimi might have been given a puncher which could have caused his car to loose control like that, seams weird how he lost it with out being tapped.

    7. Just to put Kimi’s weekend into perspective – in a weekend with no apparent technical issues, he was in the process of being overtaken by a McLaren Honda which had a 20 place grid penalty when he crashed out.

      1. That sums it up perfectly.

    8. ColdFly F1 (@)
      22nd June 2015, 7:53

      Great improvements for the Ferrari PU; even Kimi can’t handle the power!

    9. Is there no on-board video from Alonso’s car?

      1. No. Apparently they don’t have the bandwidth to record the onboard cameras for every car so they choose before the race. Guess they chose wrong for this race but you can hardly blame after Mclaren’s disastrous weekend.

        1. @racectrl lol, you’ve been reading /r/formula1… No one can clarify why they can’t show more onboard camera’s live, however, I don’t think bandwidth is necessarily the right answer. If bandwidth was an issue, wouldn’t FOM just download the stream they wanted, live in race on demand, rather than having the car dump its stream continuously?

          1. Ha, i think i did get that from /r/formula1

            The thing is there is no onboard storage on the cars so it has to be streamed somewhere (may have got that from /r/formula1 as well haha) I’m no technician but it makes sense to me that they can’t deal with 20 cars transmitting data all at once and some onboard streams go unrecorded. Of course, they can juggle which cars are recording at any given time, or if a driver retires they can pull the plug and switch to another car etc..

      2. Probably not even the cameras work on a McLaren-Honda. :)

        1. Ha.. The load on the PU to power up that camera would have led to further reliability concerns

    10. I can’t be the only one getting a little tired of Raikkonen taking up a good car seat when the likes of Hulkenberg or Bottas could clearly do a better job and be a lot more competitive.

      Ferrari could save some money and get one of, if not the, best driver lineup on the grid.

    11. Anyone else see the person standing at the edge of the track and diving out of the way? I assume it’s a photographer. You can see him pick himself up again at the end of the video. That looked pretty close.

    12. Video has been removed now, I watched it earlier but just wanted to watch it again.

      1. pastaman (@)
        22nd June 2015, 12:53

        This is one of the reasons F1 is struggling. What a perfect opportunity for fans to engage the sport in between races, but no….

      2. Yeah… I was hoping to see it but it’s been pulled.

        Thanks Bernie.

      3. F1, behind the times as always. Maybe YouTube should provide an option for copyright holders to, instead of taking down a video, claiming (part of) the ads-revenue on a video instead? That way at least we the fans get to see these videos, the uploader gets credit and the FIA / FOM get compensated

    13. the vid is gone is there a back up anywere?

      1. Is this the one? I’ve not seen the original post before it was removed.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpD1CbbABJs

        1. i dont know i never got chance to see it either thanks though.

      2. Bartosz Ceglowski
        23rd June 2015, 20:52

        I believe it was mine because of the slow mode. Not sure as it is already gone but here you have it:

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqVuSo3kOtg

    14. This could have been a great F1 season if Ferrari would have kept Alonso, dumped Kimi and hired Vettle.
      Now that would be worth watching!!

      Also, in North America, the race sound must be mixed for a 5.1 system, as with that, the car sounds come out the rear speakers, with commentators the front … it sounds good that way!

    15. Video gone. Thanks FOM. NOT.

      1. why was the video removed?

    16. This video gives you a perfect image of what happened:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1dHr3qN3DE

      1. How can you call that a “perfect image” when you cant even see Alonsos car before Räkkiönen looses controll?

        1. @Gabriel as english isn’t my native language i might have used an inappropriate expresion by using the word “perfect”. I meant a better view of the accident itself. The idea of posting the video link was to provide the forum members another perspective of what happened. I never expected that someone was going to criticize my post the way you did instead of being glad to get more information on the subject.

    17. Finally a HD vid that shows the incident up close.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5peQFW3D-I

      1. That’s a great camera angle indeed. Yet somehow some people (as evidenced by one comment in Italian) seem to insist it was all the Red Bull driver’s fault. I don’t think it’s necessary to comment this.

      2. Excellent video! Thanks for the link.

      3. This is by far the best video. Let’s see how long it’s going to take for FOM to take it out.
        I watched over and over again and it seems that Alonso touched Kimi. You can see the rear of the car being slightly lift and Alonso’s car slightly down right before Kimi losts control. That explains a lot. It’s an absurd the car loosing grip like that at 5th gear. Doesn’t make much sense as Kimi’s being hit. A small touch is enough to cause this.

        1. I don’t see it. A bump in the road combined with cold tyres is more likely IMHO.

      4. It looks like Kimi passed over a bump right before losing control.

        1. @rogercamp
          So far, I’ve gathered three different theories that all state that it wasn’t Räikkönen’s fault at all: A bump, Kvyat touching Räikkönen, Alonso touching Räikkönen …

          There’s a much simpler explanation, one that agrees with what the Finn said himself:
          He had cold tyres, and he screwed up his acceleration so badly (his wording was a tad different) that he ended up taking himself and another unlucky driver out of the race.

          If there were a bump that can cause cars to spin, why hasn’t anyone else spun in a similar fashion this year or even last year? In other words: There is no such bump. We haven’t seen any cars spin there, not even sparking ground plates – because there is no bump.

          If Kvyat or Alonso had touched Räikkönen before he lost control, why isn’t there the slightest bit of evidence for that? Why haven’t Ferrari, McLaren or Red Bull mentioned anything else than Räikkönen spinning all by himself? What’s there to gain for anyone from blaming Räikkönen for an accident that supposedly wasn’t his fault? Nothing. Because there is no such thing as a collision with any other car before he spun.

    18. The explanation of the spin of Kimi in Canada and his crash in Austria.
      In Italian.
      “Gli errori di Raikkonen e quella mappatura”
      http://autosprint.corrieredellosport.it/2015/06/22/gli-errori-kimi-quella-mappatura-ferrari-aggressiva/32690/

      1. A short resumé for the non-Italian-literate majority here:
        In short, the article says Räikkönen may have spun because of a combination of cold harder tyres and the more aggressive “Race Start” throttle mapping that cannot be changed within the first 90 seconds after a race start or pit stop. So basically the same thing that happened in Canada. Nothing too surprising, in my opinion.

        The article ends with a semi-sarcastic reply to his in-famous “Leave me alone, I know what I’m doing” – Maybe it’s time to remind him what to do, because maybe he doesn’t know what he’s doing anymore.
        Meh. That sounded better in Italian.

    19. Bartosz Ceglowski
      23rd June 2015, 20:27

      Did someone copied my video? That’s why it is removed?
      Mine is still on the youtube:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqVuSo3kOtg

    20. This shows the best footage so far. Whether Alonso touched Raikkonen or not, remains unanswered as Alonso’s camera was not on.

      http://youtu.be/sf3QBaq06ec

    21. Who said Alonso’s camera was not on?

      http://imgur.com/5lSxW4u

      It’s a lie.

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